


There's Nothing Left (but mouth-to-mouth combat)

by no_big_deal



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkwardness, F/M, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Kissing, Misunderstandings, No Babies, No Pregnancy, creative battle tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28017900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_big_deal/pseuds/no_big_deal
Summary: Rey hasn't been able to defeat Kylo Ren with a lightsaber. So when she hears about "mouth to mouth combat," she's got to give it a try.Because you never know, it just might work.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 56
Kudos: 162





	There's Nothing Left (but mouth-to-mouth combat)

**Author's Note:**

> This little palate cleanser is my sweet sixteenth fic and one of my few forays into canon verse. I'm usually not big on the "Rey's social isolation has made her so socially inept as to be ridiculous," trope, but I'm giving it a light touch here. This fic is basically a love letter to Adam Driver's mouth. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Big ups and many thanks to [Ana ](https://www.twitter.com/anopendoor3) for her quick beta! Check out her fics [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anopendoor/pseuds/anopendoor/works)! I recommend reading Only Girl, the second chapter is *swelteringly* hot.
> 
> Based off the many versions of [this](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/131941464069254335/) meme.

For Rey, the social aspect of living on a Resistance Base came with a large set of challenges, more perplexing than those she’d encountered on Jakku, where she’d lived completely alone. 

She cocked her head to the side listening to Poe gossip about Kaydel. From what Rey understood, Kaydel was in conflict with Beau, the newest member of their crew. The two had been hostile from the time Beau had arrived. Kaydel had complained to Rose that he'd taken over her communications station and recalibrated all her network arrays. But then Poe added that Beau had yelled how Kaydel was so stubborn, because she refused to upgrade her outmoded, inefficient equipment when higher quality tech was available. 

“You know what this is, right?” Poe insinuated. “All this bickering?” Finn laughed knowingly and Jannah rolled her eyes like, _of course she knows,_ and Rey looked between them for an explanation but found none. 

“Oh yeah,” Finn scoffed. “We _all_ know where this is headed.”

 _No ‘we all’ don’t,_ Rey thought mulishly.

“There’s nothing left but mouth-to-mouth combat,” quipped Jannah in her casual, understated way, which inexplicably filled Rey with a longing to be clever, or funny, or cool. 

Poe and Finn tittered like Jawas drunk on egg yolk and Rey wandered back to her barracks.

_Nothing left but mouth-to-mouth combat._

_Huh._

•~•~•

Rey was frustrated they fought through the Force bond, even though she’d started it. After Crait, after Luke had passed on into the Force, she’d been angry. Angry at Ben. She’d left Ahch-To for him, not having received much in the way of real training, and she’d failed to bring him back to the light. 

Sure Snoke was dead, but she hadn’t left Luke for Snoke. She’d left for Ben and he’d stayed with the First Order. Her risk hadn’t paid off. The sacrifice hadn’t been worth it. 

Then one fine day, the Force bond had connected them and he’d been standing there, saber already ignited, and Rey… _lost it._

Not caring what he was in the middle of, she’d called her weapon and attacked, no _hi, how ya doing, Ben,_ no time for any of his stupid, pointless questions about the nature of their connection. Just an angry, throat-ripping roar before she began hacking away, blue on red, sparks flying as bright pulses of energy crackled between them.

It had happened at least half a dozen times now.

But it was safe to say they were at a standstill, Rey mused. Or a rut, more like. They were stuck in a rut.

They weren’t good at talking; words never got them anywhere. And the saber duels were long past the point of feeling life threatening. They were equally matched. So what else was there? 

Rey mulled over Jannah’s words one last time.

She wasn't exactly sure what mouth-to-mouth combat entailed, but Rey came from the fake it ‘till you make it school of scavenging and had no doubt she could pick it up as she went. If Kaydel and Beau could do it, how difficult could it be?

And it seemed like there were benefits to this new form of fighting. Mouth-to-mouth would, by necessity, foreclose the possibility of talking, which was a big plus. It would also alter the fighting technique: no sabers, only… lips? 

And his were pretty big— _very pretty and very big_ —with a tendency to tremble appealingly and pout distractingly. A shiver of apprehension tingled over Rey’s frowning face. Ben was probably magnificent at mouth-to-mouth combat; she had better be ready. 

She lost a few minutes in meditative preparation, pondering how Ben’s mouth had looked in the elevator as they ascended to Snoke’s throne room. Muted magenta and bewitchingly mopey. If only she’d known about mouth-to-mouth combat back then! Things might have gone differently if she’d been able to defeat him without a lightsaber. But perhaps, this time, with the element of surprise, she could get the upper hand and defeat Kylo Ren once and for all.

All she needed to do was wait.

•~•~•

Twilight was settling in, the setting sun dappling through the leaves of the forest where Rey sat meditating. She was surrounded by wildflowers: buttermilk yellow blooms that released a light sweet smell when Rey touched them. Her eyes had fluttered open as a breeze brought the scent to her nose when _it_ happened. The telltale popping of Force energy heralding the beginnings of a Bond. 

Rey leapt. 

Mid-leap was when she noticed her adversary was in a state of undress. His bare, broad shoulders were slumped, his head hung down as he held a black undershirt in both hands. 

“Not today, Rey—” he mumbled, not turning to face her, but he was too late. 

Tackling him to the ground, she batted the shirt out of his hand and straddled his chest, barely registering his slack-jawed look of wonder before pressing his shoulders back and setting her mouth to his.

It was, instantly, both a sensational and _terrible_ way of fighting. It was perfect and yet there were so many adjustments she needed to make following her initial strike. 

Ben’s mouth froze under hers as she pushed her lips against his as hard as she could, hard enough that she could feel the outline of his teeth. Before she could regroup, however, Ben gasped on an inhale, his smooth lips pulling out from under her dry ones and coming to surround her mouth with warmth and wetness. It tingled, deliciously, and this would not do. It took a bit of effort, but working her jaw methodically, like she was chewing an overly-large bite of a perfectly cooked bantha steak, she eventually reversed their positions, and now his lips were trapped within hers. 

Ben’s eyes had fluttered closed, his long lashes brushing the apple of her cheek. Rey tried to keep her eyes open—better to adjust if he readied a counter strike—but her eyes kept crossing and they _hurt_ so she closed them. Ben hadn’t tried to re-open his, so perhaps this was like training with a blast shield helmet. She had the Force, she didn’t need her eyes. If Ben could fight blind, so could she.

Keeping Ben’s lips subdued within her own, she was prepared to declare victory when she nearly jumped out of her skin—Ben’s large hands landed on her hips, covering her from thigh to waist, his fingertips curling around her backside. Her legs were spread wide over his ribs as she straddled him; her knees releasing the sweet scent of the jungle flowers as she rocked forward to press her face down on his. Her hands were still on his shoulders, pressing into the pale, freckled skin; she was afraid to give up her leverage merely to bat his hands away. Especially when the feel of his hands on her ass was so confusingly good. At his urging, her entire abdomen clenched agreeably; this maneuver must be a distraction from the mouth-to-mouth combat. Oh, she had so much to learn. 

Ben’s fingers flexed again, pushing a breath from her throat, creating a guttural, rasping, shockingly decadent noise that Ben answered in kind. His growl made Rey’s heart stutter and she furrowed her brow, focusing on the drag of their lips as she devoured him. Delighted at her progress, her teeth caught on his lower lip and she sucked it into her mouth. 

Rey exulted. If the sounds Ben was now making were anything to go by, she was definitely winning. 

He hummed and rasped and groaned, but it wasn’t in complete distress—he was trying to hold his own—she could tell. His heart was pounding under her hand, which had slipped off his shoulder to his chest; her other hand slid up, fingers tangling in the soft hair above his right ear. She pushed his head slightly to change the angle of attack to ease the stretch of her neck and tingled with the thrill of triumph as she easily moved his head to the side. He was no longer fighting her.

She was on the cusp of victory— but then, during the split second she reopened her mouth to recapture Ben’s lips she felt... _his tongue._ Just the tip, but it was spongy and damp, sliding smoothly across her bottom lip. Her head swam, a fuzzy sleepy feeling overtaking her— and Rey could recognize a counteroffensive. She castigated herself for not realizing her tongue could be used as a weapon as well.

Giving Ben a growl, she wound her tongue around his as best she could and pushed it back into his mouth. Her face screwed up with effort as she opened as wide as her lips would stretch, straining her tongue. The result was _intoxicating._ The inside of Ben’s mouth was a riot of textures and tastes she was immediately desperate to explore. Ben was dazed; Rey felt success surge back within her grasp. But when her tongue traced the inside of his teeth, Ben retaliated, swift and certain. 

Using some sort of mouth-to-mouth tae-jitsu, he turned her aggression back on her in a stunning reversal. Rey whined, alarmed, as Ben opened his mouth _wider,_ inviting her tongue inside, sucking on it gently but firmly, holding her captive as he drew more _noises_ from her throat. She rallied, resting her palm against his cheek, and she was shocked to feel wetness on her fingertips, what felt like tears but could not possibly be. 

He moved one hand on her lower back, pressing her into him. Shameless, she could not stop the groan forced from her lips when the heat at the apex of her thighs met his body. Electricity ran riot over Rey’s skin, a buzzing bliss that titillated and terrified her.

Tearing her face away, she tossed her head, feeling her hair slide loose from her buns. She needed a moment to analyze this frenzy, this _passion,_ but could not find the will to stop her hips from grinding on Ben’s ribcage or remove his hands from her person. This was unlike any form of combat she was familiar with. Instead of hurting each other, it all felt so good, so shockingly good. Ben’s hand now fully grasped her ass; his other had moved to caress her waist, followed by her breast as she writhed on top of his naked chest. Rey shuddered as a despairing realization set in. This... _euphoria_ was not—could not possibly be—the way this war was meant to be waged. 

It all felt too rich. She didn’t feel in control, she felt the unshakable urge to _give,_ to _surrender,_ to let Ben have his way with her. This wasn’t a winning strategy any longer; it was a form of torture— heart-rending and devastating. Eyes watering, heart sinking, she knew she had lost. 

“You win,” she gasped, unable to stop stroking his immense chest with the flat of her palms. His thumb caressed the swell of her breast, tender even through her tunic and breastband. “Please, no more,” she begged, wiping an errant, unexplainable tear from the corner of her eye. “You win.”

She whimpered in defeat as his hands vanished from her body, leaving her bereft. Summoning her courage, she raised her head to look her adversary in the eye. She expected to meet the smug, gloating grin of Kylo Ren, but instead, Ben’s eyes, wide, liquid and _terrified_ stared back into hers. 

“Rey.” He breathed her name like a prayer. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. I won’t—” he swallowed thickly, his hands raised on either side of Rey’s legs, clenched into fists, no longer touching her. 

She nodded, gingerly removing her fingers from his pectorals and sliding off his body to one side. She shuddered, cold with the loss of his body heat and the mounting disappointment of having failed yet again to bring Ben back to the light. 

He scrambled to sit next to her, his legs crossed, elbows resting on his knees as he leaned towards her, hunched over. 

“What brought this on?” he asked intently and Rey was reminded of how his tendency to ask nonsensical questions during Force Bonds had been a primary motivator for trying the mouth-to-mouth combat in the first place. 

“I was trying something new, something different.” She looked away when his eyebrows began to rise precipitously, adding, “but it didn’t work, so it doesn’t matter.” 

“Felt like it worked to me,” Ben muttered, shifting his hips and pulling lightly at the waistband of his pants. “But why did you say that I won?” His head cocked to the side, confusion evident in the set of his jaw. “I won what?”

“What do you think?” Rey cried, cheeks flushing, cringing at having to spell it out for him. “What did you think was happening? We’re enemies, aren’t we?” 

“Are we?” Ben’s frustrated voice rumbled in her ear. “You jump on me, you kiss me. I mean, we’re lying in my bed.” The tips of his ears turned red as he whispered. “It’s my _birthday.”_ Shocked, she jumped and he looked back up at her, his light eyes ablaze, his full lips dark pink and swollen from their skirmish. “What was I supposed to think?”

“But…” Rey’s chest constricted. “Wait a minute. _Kiss you?_ What are you talking about—” Her fingers flew to her lips, sudden understanding rolling over her in horrible, mortifying waves. “Oh— no, but this wasn’t— that wasn’t—”

Her ears popped sharply as Ben vanished, leaving her alone, a patch of crushed yellow flowers where his body had been. 

•~•~•

Rey raced back to base, her breath coming in short steady gasps. _What had she done?_

“Rose?” She found her friend thankfully alone in a hangar. “Can I ask you a question about… kissing?”

The mechanic paused, elbows deep in an x-wing's circuits before turning toward Rey. 

“Sure,” she replied slowly. “Though I’m not a huge expert.” She blushed. “You might want to ask Poe if you're looking for tips—”

Rey shook her head. “I just need to know, what’s the difference between kissing and... mouth-to-mouth combat?”

The two young women blinked at each other for a long moment. Rey could barely breathe. 

“Oh, sweetie.” Rose stepped in close. “What did you do?”

•~•~•

Rey knocked lightly on the General’s door. Poe said she’d slipped away after the evening meal without much of a word. There weren’t any meetings or strategy sessions planned that night. 

Rey thought she might have a good idea as to why.

Sitting up straight, as properly as she knew how, Rey fidgeted under Leia’s gaze before blurting out the reason she’d come.

“I know it’s his birthday. Ben’s birthday.” Her fingers twisted around a loose thread on the knee of her soft grey pants. “The Force connected us earlier… he mentioned it. He thought I _knew—”_

“Rey.” The General’s deep brown eyes were comforting and warm. “Thank you for telling me.” She patted Rey’s hand, holding it close between her own. “If Ben’s thinking about his birthday, that’s _good._ It’s sentimental; not a day Kylo Ren would commemorate,” she said, her lips quirking into a half-grin. “That means there’s still hope.”

•~•~•

Later, Rey sat alone in her bunk, meditating. She balanced the light and darkness within herself, and reached out with her feelings, raising up each low and hidden place, and redirecting the narrow channels of the Force into a flow both smooth and wide. 

When she opened her eyes, he was there. 

Helmet on, saber ignited, wearing at least three layers of thick black clothing under a wide dark cape. 

“Aw, geez,” Rey muttered. “Am I interrupting something?”

“What do you want, scavenger?” Rey winced as the metallic scrape of Kylo Ren’s voice snagged roughly on every wrinkle of her brain. 

“I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.” She worked up a small smile and picked up a piece of cake she’d had sitting next to her, in case this had worked. “You should be able to eat this, if I can hand it to you.”

When he didn’t move, she gestured encouragingly for him to come sit. “Turn that thing off and come eat your birthday cake. We can talk. Your favorite thing.” She shot him a mischievous look. “I’ll answer any question you have, we can figure out the Bond, whatever you want. It’s _your_ birthday.”

It felt as if he kept her waiting for a long moment, but eventually, the cross-guard saber flickered out, and he removed his helmet in a puff of compressed air. Throwing his cape over one shoulder with a dramatic flourish he sat next to her on the bed and she wondered where they were sitting from his perspective. She blushed, wondering how _so many things_ looked from his perspective. 

He removed his gloves slowly, and picked at the piece of cake she’d handed him, eating a few bites of the plain white cake with a muja fruit glaze.

“It’s good,” he mumbled. “Thank you.” 

She took a deep breath. “So about earlier…”

“No point in discussing it,” he focused sullenly on his cake. “Just a misunderstanding.”

She ignored him, popping a bite of cake in her mouth. “I kept thinking I needed to defeat you. To overpower Kylo Ren and drag Ben Solo back home. But that wasn’t right, was it?”

Ben paused, having finished his cake, avid eyes watching her lick the berry glaze from her finger. He shook his head. 

“No,” Rey continued, using his silence as tacit agreement. “Because victory in battle is not the only path to success.” 

Hand trembling slightly, she reached out, stroking Ben’s cheek with her thumb, tucking his long dark hair behind his ear. Sliding closer, until she was in his lap, she lightly pressed her lips to his, dropping kisses on his plum-colored pout, nipping the taste of muja from his tongue until he rolled her underneath his body. In the shelter of his arms she was conquered and he willingly came as the light poured in to fill the spaces where they both gave ground.

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory post-canonverse links to Wookiepedia, just the way Thea taught us:
> 
> [ Tae-Jitsu ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tae-Jitsu)  
> [ Muja fruit ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Muja_fruit/)
> 
>   
> If I missed any tags, please let me know, either here or on twitter. I'm [ @spoonfulofsalad](https://www.twitter.com/spoonfulofsalad), please come say hi!  
> 
> 
> Kudos & comments are life! Thank you for reading, and I'd love to know what you think!


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